[DanielHB]

I worked with CNC machining shops in Sweden and the people working there made the exact same points. CNC is not exactly an art form, but programming the machines definitely has some craftsmanship aspects to it. Even considering that after a part is programmed it can then be mass produced.

- Very hard to get young people in because entry level pays very poorly AND requires non-trivial amounts of training.

- Razor-thin margins so shops can't afford to pay well

- Overall not great work conditions compared to an office job

- Retiring experienced older workforce with no one to replace them

- Having a shop in China machine the parts for you can be quite acceptable, especially in higher volumes

However I disagree with your argument of "obsession with [...] only ever hiring the 10xer". It is not so much that, but rather that if you hire average people with average skills or people that require training *you go out of business* because the shop next door won't.

Basically it drains the expertise completely dry until is just completely moves to another country having a demographic boom. And this is happening to software engineering right now. People who complain about immigration don't seem to realize that non-developed countries are seeing massive population growth reductions too.

Eventually the world is going to run out of countries having demographic booms, then society will have a massive lack of people to maintain existing infrastructure and corporations. The only upside is that wealth inequality should drastically reduce in this scenario (unless some governments manage to push caste systems back into fashion).

[ItsYan]

>It is not so much that, but rather that if you hire average people with average skills or people that require training you go out of business because the shop next door won't.

If only workers would form some kind of a community, which would take monthly contributions and that would then be used to upskill. It would unite most, if not all people in the same industry.

[michael1999]

Are there countries where trade unions are still active in training? Most places I see they are entirely focused on wage bargaining, and are happy to gut training for the young if they can maintain the generous pensions of the old.

[quickthrowman]

Trade unions in the US do educate and train apprentices, I’m most familiar with the IBEW (electricians).

Local IBEW halls have apprentice programs (JATC is an common name for this program) where the apprentices go to class at the union hall one day a week for 20 weeks a year and spend the rest of the time working in the field.

I am pretty sure that sheet metal workers, pipefitters, and plumbers unions offer similar programs.

[bell-cot]

> - Razor-thin margins so shops can't afford to pay well

> - Having a shop in China machine the parts for you can be quite acceptable, especially in higher volumes

Yes, in some circumstances, your idea can work. To a degree. But there are plenty of trades and whole industries where domestic employment has fallen by 100X or more, because global capitalism found plenty of cheap workers in distant countries. Where 10X (or more) lower pay didn't seem so bad, compared to their local alternatives.

[DanielHB]

My point is that the expertise drain is going to hit those other countries too, within our work-lives given the demographics of China, Korea and Japan. The same thing is happening over there to even worse degrees, youth unemployment is already massive problem in east asia and when all those trained workspeople and engineers leave the work force in ~30 years.

Sure then that expertise could migrate to other countries, possibly some in Africa. But the demographics slow down is probably already going to afflict those countries before the expertise leaves east asia in the first place.

I truly believe that within 40 years we are going to have a massive infrastructure maintenance problem, where the world will run dry of trained professionals to maintain everything that is already built. And, like I mentioned above, the wealth inequality will reduce because the owners of capital will need to pay premium rates for qualified workforce (think how cobol is today).

[strken]

There are a bunch of upsides here. Industrialisation increases standard of living compared to an agrarian economy. A service economy, where services mean things like industrial engineering and product marketing, increases standard of living even further.

I get that tool and die is going to be in demand again one day, but that's not an overall downside. For that to happen, every country which could be outsourced to will be too wealthy and have a service economy, and they'll have to use their wealth to hire the last remaining tool and die makers as instructors. Compared to the upsides of nobody being a subsistence farmer or sweatshop worker anymore, and of most people living in advanced economies, that downside is small.

[roenxi]

> - Razor-thin margins so shops can't afford to pay well

If the margins are so razor thin that people the shops can't afford to pay well, what is the point of having the shops? Have the people go do something that pays well. There seem to be alternatives if people don't feel pressured to enter the industry in the first place.

If Sweden has picked a policy mix where it can't profitably run an industry then it'll either have to give up some material comfort to do it uneconomically or give up the industry. You don't make it sound like there is a hard conversation being had around intentionally lowering living standards to support machining shops. So let them go.

> Eventually the world is going to run out of countries having demographic booms, then society will have a massive lack of people to maintain existing infrastructure and corporations.

Under such circumstances, margins will have to rise to the point where machine shops will be able to hire some snot-nosed apprentices. Economics is pretty brutal about that sort of thing.

[DanielHB]

It is not a problem of Sweden specifically, I imagine this kind of problem will hit China hard in 20-40 years too. Companies in China behave just the same way as in Sweden, they have huge youth unemployment problems there too.

[bsenftner]

Capitalism's core aspect is exploitation, of course this is the result. Capitalism, that "nothing can beat this economic system" winner is a winner because it is immoral, folks. It is based on exploiting those with no alternative. Of course this decimation of competing participants is part of its core operation. Capitalism is a controlled conflict. It is slow violence.

[pfdietz]

Those being hired in the low labor cost countries don't view it as exploitation. They view it as a gift, opportunities and outcomes they didn't have before.

People complain about inequality. This migration of jobs from rich to poorer countries is the market dealing exactly with that. Maybe inequality is ok if you're benefiting from it?

[bsenftner]

That's a propaganda lie, ask how the Foxconn staff think about this, those that have suicide nets outside of their work skyscrapers. you're being a parrot for a culture of exploiters and punching downers.

[pfdietz]

You think those people in low income countries would prefer what they were doing before? Then why do they take these jobs? Is someone holding a gun to their heads?

Don't compare these jobs to some unattained ideal, compare them to the alternatives they have.

[bsenftner]

Yes! Guns or their prior way of life destroyed by industrialized nations, it does not matter. We in our capitalistic drive exploited them, and now these economic slaves have no alternative. Yes! They prefer to make their own destinies, whatever they may be, through their own means with their own cultures. Not ours, not our corporate servitude.

[nsvd2]

If this is happening in software engineering it would imply that Americans are moving to other, higher paid work which doesn't seem to be the case.